"But, no doubt, your parents would take more interest in the children than your brother." "I don't dispute that, Your Majesty. But if my parents joined me at the present time, people might think they came to condole with me or else to scold me. I want Leopold." The Queen said she wouldn't dare mention Leopold to His Majesty. "Well, then," I concluded, "I shall stay in Dresden, regarding Baumann's fine promises as mere talk." The Queen went away with the air of a martyr, but three days later Baumann came and said His Imperial Highness was welcome. A triumph all along the line. I left Dresden without seeing the King. Frederick Augustus is at the manoeuvres. The Baroness is acting as my Grand Mistress. I expect Leopold in a fortnight. CHAPTER XXIII A SERVANT-TYRANT My correspondence is not safe from the malicious woman appointed Grand Mistress--Lovers at a distance and by correspondence--Fell in love with a leg. LOSCHWITZ, _September 8, 1894_. Baroness Tisch, now that she attained the height of her ambition, is beginning to show her claws. She is an infernal cat. Her skinniness makes her repulsive to me and her face gives everyone the impression that she just sucked an enormous lemon. She lisps and that makes me nervous. I feel like aping her when she isn't around. She's after me like the devil chasing a poor soul and as I never address her except to command or reprimand, she tries to find out any secret doings, or thinkings, I may be guilty of by way of letters I write or receive. According to the laws of most countries private correspondence is sacred, legally and morally. The late Field-Marshal, Count Blumenthal, wrote to his wife of the Crown Prince, afterwards Emperor Frederick, that he was a "d----fool," but "as communications between husband and wife are privileged," no official cognizance was taken. Otherwise in this petty kingdom and, as already told, in Austria, whose monarch, in family matters at least, holds to the "_L'Etat c'est moi_" maxim.